


Storm Clouds on the Ocean

by youjik33



Category: Arrested Development
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-14
Updated: 2014-03-14
Packaged: 2018-01-15 15:46:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1310305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youjik33/pseuds/youjik33
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gob tries to figure things out with Tony. This is a problem, because Gob is terrible at figuring anything out and always has been.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Storm Clouds on the Ocean

**Author's Note:**

> This is kind of a sequel to [Quite a Mess](http://archiveofourown.org/works/968844), but stands on its own well enough if you've seen season 4.

It's May 6, and Gob is sitting at the bar in what he's _pretty_ sure is the actual gayest Little Ballroom, sipping a cosmo (because it's a strong drink, it's on special, and nobody here's going to judge him for it). He's early, but he's already said “I wonder if Tony's here yet” out loud a couple of times as a precaution. The club's not all that busy; a string of jalapeno-shaped lights strung up over the bar serves as a reminder that most of the regular crowd is home recovering from tequila hangovers. 

Gob spent most of Cinco de Mayo hiding in the model home trying to decide what the hell to do in between bouts of crying into his pillow, masturbating, and crying into his pillow while masturbating. When he'd eventually worked up the nerve to return Tony's call he'd pretended to be just as confused about what day it was, and eventually, somehow, they'd scheduled another date.

Gob finishes his cosmo and considers ordering a second. He isn't sure he's ready to face Tony, isn't sure what he's going to do when he sees him; just hearing his voice on the phone had sent electric shivers up his spine. He wants to leave and stand Tony up; he wants to stay and grind with him on the dance floor, grabbing him like he's never going to let go. Gob wants to ruin Tony's life and make him just as miserable as he's felt the past two days and he wants to stay together forever and maybe get gay married.

It's confusing.

He's just taking a sip of his second cosmo when a voice calls “Mr. Bluth?” Gob chokes, sputters, looks around in a panic for somewhere to hide – what the hell is his father doing here? 

“Mr. Bluth?” the voice asks again. “Gob?”

Gob is too relieved at the realization that “Mr. Bluth” is not in fact George Sr. to worry about being recognized in a gay bar. “Hey,” he says, turning around on his stool. 

The guy who'd been calling his name looks almost vaguely familiar. He's dark-haired and handsome, jawline perfectly stubbled, the top couple of buttons of his dress shirt artfully undone. “Wow,” he says. “It's been ages, huh? Kind of surprised to see you here.”

“Yeah,” Gob agrees, even though he still hasn't figured out where he knows the guy from. Then he remembers where he is, and the realization that he has no idea if this is someone he should be lying to or not makes his shoulders stiffen. “Uh... yeah, I don't usually... I'm just, you know, meeting a... friend.”

“Oh,” the man says, expression inscrutable. “Mind if I join you for a minute? Maybe we could do a little catching up?” 

“Uh...”

“...you have no idea who I am, do you.” 

“Of course I do! I mean, I have an _idea_.” Gob frowns. “Did we work together?”

“Well, yeah...”

“I knew it,” Gob says, relieved. “So, are you still a Hot Cop?”

“What? No! I was never-- I guess I'm flattered you think I'm hot enough, but--” He sighs, flopping onto the neighboring stool, looking deflated. “Gary?” he offers. “From when you were president of the Bluth Company?” 

“Ohhh, yeah! You were a huge help on that _Tricks Around the Office_ video,” Gob says. “And, hey, guess who's president again?”

“...congratulations,” Gary says. “Uh, I'm actually over at Sitwell now. I have business cards and everything.” He pulls one out of his wallet and hands it to Gob. “You know, things just got pretty unstable at the Bluth Company for a while...”

“Oh, yeah, I hear you,” Gob says, jamming the card into his pocket without looking at it. 

“And I'm recently single for the first time in a while, that's kind of an adjustment.” Gary clears his throat. “So, how about you? You seeing anyone?”

Gob takes a nervous gulp of his drink. “Kind of,” he says. “I don't know. It's complicated. I don't want to talk about it.”

“You sure?” Gary says, head cocked to one side. “You kind of look like you do want to talk about it.”

“I said no,” Gob grumbles, taking another drink. That's a lie. He does want to talk about it, desperately, but who could he possibly tell about Tony who will actually listen without getting all judgmental on him? The sweetness of the cosmo is starting to turn cloying.

“Okay, okay,” Gary relents. “You just seemed kind of down, and if I can help-”

“Apparently you're having trouble hearing me,” Gob says, “over all that squeaking.” He pulls the mouse out of Gary's ear absolutely flawlessly, and the other man blinks at it for a second, then grins. It's an exceptionally cute mouse, too, this one, white with black spots, like a dalmatian; its little whiskers twitch against Gob's hand.

“I was wondering if you still did magic,” Gary says in delight. (Gob glances around quickly, braced for a flash or a puff of smoke, and is a little disappointed when Tony doesn't appear.) Gary reaches for Gob's hand. “Can I...?” 

“Sure,” Gob says, handing over the mouse. Gary gently scratches it between the ears, and watching him stirs something warm and familiar in the pit of Gob's stomach. Gary, he realizes, is really, really hot.

That train of thought is interrupted by the bartender clearing his throat. He's got his arms crossed over his chest and is glaring at the both of them. “Look,” he rumbles, “I get that it's cute and all, but you can't have mice in here, that's a health code violation. Take it outside.”

Gary shoots Gob a sheepish smile, and Gob shrugs and slides off the stool. “I'll put them in the car.” 

“Them?” Gary asks, following Gob out the door and into the parking lot. 

“Well, yeah,” Gob says. “What kind of magician only has one mouse at a time?”

\-------

Gob puts the mouse in the glove box, and then empties his pockets and sleeves of the other six. 

“You have a limo?” Gary asks incredulously.

“Yeah.” Gob's been driving it so long he sometimes forgets it's not normal. “Kind of a long story.” Mice safely stowed, he shuts the door and leans against it. The parking lot lights send deep shadows over Gary's face; he looks mysterious and beautiful, and Gob feels warm again. He looks at his watch. Tony's five minutes late and Gob feels a sudden burst of panic. What if he doesn't show up at all?

“Hey,” he says to Gary. “Can I take you up on that offer to talk? In private?”

Gary bites his lower lip for a second, then squares his shoulders, as though bracing himself. “Sure,” he says.

\-------

Gob sits across from Gary in the back of the limo in silence for a long time, trying to figure out how to explain what's going on when he doesn't even know himself. “So,” he says finally. He decides to start with the most important part. “I'm not gay.”

Gary quirks one eyebrow. “Okay.”

“I mean, I can't be, right? I've probably fucked hundreds of women. I don't even remember how many. A gay guy wouldn't do that.”

“Maybe if he was really repressed,” Gary says. “And spent his whole life in a perpetual state of denial. Or he could always be bisexual or something.”

“Are you gonna keep interrupting?”

“No, sorry.” 

Gob takes a deep breath. “But I slept with this guy. I can't tell you who 'cause he's kind of famous.” He pauses, going back over those words in his head. _I slept with this guy._ Huh. It really happened. “So, I mean, it was great, we had all these orgasms and everything.” (They had three apiece.) “And even though the relationship started because we were secretly trying to ruin each other's careers, I thought we had a real connection.” His voice breaks a little on that word, and he swallows. “But then I wake up the next morning and apparently he's taken a forget-me-now and doesn't even know that we spent the night together and I don't know what to do because I just want to be with him so bad but I'm _not gay_ and why would he want to forget about what we did, everyone already thinks he's gay anyway, what a horrible fucking asshole.”

Gary is staring at him. “...are you in love with him?”

“Of course I'm not in love with him!” Gob says, and then, “Am I? I mean, that would be crazy. He's my _nemesis_. Anyway, how does a person even know if they're in love?”

“Well...” Gary shifts in his seat, looking out the window. “In my case, I guess if I was taking time out of my busy workday to help a guy shoot an office magic DVD even though he was completely denying we'd ever been hooking up, that would mean I was probably kind of in love with him.”

“Wait,” Gob says, feeling betrayed. “You filmed a video for some other magician?”

“I'm just saying... hypothetically.”

“Oh.” Gob frowns. “Well, I haven't done anything like that.”

“Okay, well...” Gary shrugs. “What color are his eyes?”

“I don't know.”

“You don't... okay, if you don't even remember what color his eyes are...”

“Of course I remember!” Gob protests. “It's just that there's not really a word – I mean I guess they're blue but not like a normal blue, it's like the color of storm clouds reflected on the surface of the ocean.”

Gary stares at him. “His eye color is 'storm clouds reflected on the ocean'?”

“Yeah,” Gob says, but even that description seem to do it justice.

“I think,” Gary says slowly, “you just might actually be in love with him.”

Gob tries to apply the word “love” to the tangle of emotion that's been knotted up inside him, but it doesn't seem to quite want to stay there, because there's something else, too, something more familiar – fear and uncertainty and just-barely-suppressed total hysteria.

“Hey, Gob,” Gary says , “What's a forget-me-now?”

“Oh, they're these pills magicians use to cause short-term memory loss, in case we accidentally give away a secret,” Gob says distractedly.

“That explains a lot,” Gary sighs. “I thought you were impressively good at denial, but I guess you had help.”

“What are you talking about?” 

“Gob,” Gary says. He crosses the small space between them, and Gob is too surprised to move as Gary settles onto his lap, straddling his hips. Gob puts his arms around Gary's waist almost automatically. “You are _so_ gay.” He hesitates. “Or maybe bi; I guess it's complicated.”

“That's ridiculous.”

“Then why aren't you pushing me away?”

“I don't know. You smell nice.” Gary feels nice too, solid and wiry in a way that reminds him of the man he was supposed to be here to see. “But, look, I can't- I'm meeting someone.” 

“Are you gonna tell me who it is?” Gary asks. He leans close, stubble brushing against Gob's cheek, breath warm against his ear. “Or are you just going to leave me to wonder?”

There's a sudden flash of light, and Gob, heart in his throat, pushes Gary off his lap, hitting his head on the ceiling in a panic. 

“Did somebody,” Tony says, crouched on the floor in front of the folded-down back seat, “say 'wonder'?” 

But his voice is all wrong, hard and flat, dark eyebrows furrowed, and his stormclouds-on-the-ocean eyes look like they could shoot lightning any second.

“Holy shit,” Gary says, sprawled on the seat. “You're dating _Tony Wonder_?”

Gob locks eyes with Tony, trying to figure out what to say. He has no idea how much of that conversation Tony heard, but he definitely saw Gary on Gob's lap. There's got to be something Gob can say to defuse the situation, but all that comes out is “Did you break into my trunk?”

“It wasn't that hard,” Tony says. “Why are there so many dead bees back there?”

“This isn't what it looks like,” Gob says, choosing to ignore the question.

“Really? Because it looks like you blew me off for some guy you picked up at the bar.”

“...okay, this is kind of what it looks like.”

“Um,” says Gary, “Mr. Wonder, I'm a huge fan. I've seen your show three times, you're amazing.”

“Thanks.” Tony's face lights up, for a second, but then his mouth thins and he glares at Gob again.

“No, look, Tony, I wasn't picking him up, I was just – we used to work together and I needed relationship advice and then he smelled good –” That last part is definitely not the right thing to say. “Anyway, didn't you hear the whole thing?”

“Not really,” Tony admits. “It was pretty muffled. I'm just really good at picking the word 'wonder' out of a conversation.”

“You have to tell him,” Gary says, nudging Gob's foot with his own.

“Tell him what?”

“All the stuff you told me.”

“I can't—” 

“Tell me what, Gobie?” Tony repeats. He finally gets up off the floor (Gob kindly ignores the wince Tony makes as he stretches his knees out) and settles onto the seat across from them. He's wearing leather pants. How the hell is Gob supposed to be coherent when Tony is wearing leather pants?

“Well,” Gary says, looking back and forth between them, “I get the feeling this is a private conversation, so I'll just see myself out.”

Gob follows him out the passenger-side door. “Hey, Gary,” he says. “I don't know how much it actually helped, but thanks. For listening to me.”

“You're an asshole, Gob Bluth,” Gary says, “and so is he, and I hope you're happy together. It sounds like I'm being sarcastic but seriously, I do. You might have fucked me over in a lot of ways-” He laughs, clapping Gob's shoulder and shaking his head– “including ways you don't even remember, but I think my time with you made me a better person, in the end, so... well, thanks for that.” He leans in, presses a kiss to Gob's jaw. “Maybe I'll see you two in _Poof_ sometime.”

“...who was that again?” asks Tony as they watch him leave.

“He used to work at the Bluth Company,” Gob explains. “I think I might've slept with him and then drugged myself so I didn't remember.”

“Why in the world would you do that?”

Gob takes a deep, shaky breath. “Tony,” he says, “we need to talk.”

\-------

_Practice kisses~_ Mark Cherry blares, and Gary is jolted from a sound sleep, fumbling around on the nightstand for his phone, bracing himself for an emergency.

“Gary! Hey! Can you do me a favor?”

He rolls onto his back, rubbing his eyes with his free hand and sighing. “What do you need, Gob? It's like...” He squints at the clock. “...three in the morning.”

“Can you flip a coin or something, and tell me if it's heads or tails?” There's an indistinct voice in the background and then Gob continues, “Okay, I'm gonna put you on speaker.”

“Why do you need me to do that?” Gary asks. He feels like he should be angry but he's too tired.

“We need a third party to call it for it to be fair, is all.”

“So why me?”

“Because my brother kept hanging up on me. Come on, it'll only take a second.”

“Okay, okay,” Gary says, flipping on the bedside lamp. “I have some quarters here. What are you doing this for, anyway?”

“It's the only fair way to decide who's on top,” comes Tony Wonder's voice, tinged with impatience. 

“Uh,” says Gary. “Okay.” _You can't just talk it over?_ he thinks, but asking these guys to take the logical route seems pointless. He jams the phone between his ear and shoulder and tosses the quarter. “Tails,” he reports.

There's a cheer from Gob and a cry of “Wait, best two out of three?” from Tony.

“No,” Gary says. “I'm not doing this any more, you got Tails, just go with it.”

There isn't any reply, and for a second Gary thinks Gob must have hung up on him. But then he hears gasps, and the unmistakable creak of bedsprings. They didn't hang up at all. They've totally forgotten about him.

Gary holds the phone at arm's length. He should really hang up, give them some privacy. 

There's a loud moan, and Tony's voice gasps _”Jesus!”_

Hardly daring to breathe, Gary holds the phone up to his ear.

What the hell. He's got unlimited minutes, anyway.


End file.
